Alberta is unique. It's more pro-American than any other province,
yet is distinctly Canadian. And unlike other provinces, it is able to
embrace certain aspects of US thinking without fear of losing its identity.
It's a self-assured, can-do, damn-the-torpedoes kind of place. It's
an example of what the rest of Canada could be like.

Consider the Prairie Provinces:

In the early part of the 20th century, Winnipeg was the biggest cash
wheat market in the world -- bigger than Liverpool and even Chicago. Grain
buyers and investors from all over the world were drawn to Winnipeg. After
the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly was established, buying, selling, and
the unapproved processing of wheat products was illegal. The buyers and
investors took their money, talent, and innovative ideas elsewhere.

In the US, risk taking and innovative ideas in the ag sector paid big
dividends, creating a pool of capital that gave rise to other industries.
Huge private corporations that would very likely have located their head
offices in Winnipeg, were it not for the CWB monopoly, today employ tens
of thousands of people. Only a small fraction of these employees are in
Manitoba. As silly as it sounds, successive Manitoba governments cheered
the policy that made it happen. At the same time, Manitobans have elected
several big labour anti-business governments, which explains why Manitoba
has exported an average of 5,500 people per year for the past 40 years.
If it had retained them, Winnipeg would be the size of Calgary.

Saskatchewan is a more tragic story. In the 1930s, it had a population
that was almost equal to what it is today. Many national and multinational
companies had located their head offices in Regina. They did so because
Regina is the true geographic hub of the west, not Winnipeg, not Calgary.

With the creation of the CWB monopoly and the election of a socialist
premier, the province's economic future was in trouble. Prior to
the CWB monopoly, the rural skyline had been dotted with flourmills. The
CWB monopoly made it illegal for a farmer, investor, or group of farmers
to grow wheat, turn it into flour, and sell it.

Even today, there is far more money to be made processing wheat than
selling raw kernels, yet the roadblock of the CWB stands. There are Saskatchewan
farmers and investors at this very moment who want to build pasta plants,
add value to their grain, and sell it. They can't. It's illegal
now and has been for 60 years. Tragically, Saskatchewan governments have
cheered the policy and still do. While doing so, they moan about an undeveloped
rural economy and insist that Ottawa hike transfer payments.

Saskatchewan is a have-not province because successive governments planned
for it to be that way. It didn't just happen. After getting elected,
the socialist government of Tommy Douglas literally picked a fight with
private business and the many oil companies that were located in Regina.

The result was that businesses left Saskatchewan in convoys, moving west
to Alberta. The province's economic future was mapped out when Douglas
and his colleagues began borrowing money to set up the many Crown corporations
that they said would go hand in hand with the CWB monopoly to form the
foundation of Saskatchewan's economy.

Today, Saskatchewan is bleeding people. It gets by on welfare. The welfare
cheques are delivered in the form of transfer payments that come from
Ottawa. Ottawa gets the money by taxing Albertans who are able to generate
it because many decades ago Alberta rejected the very policies that turned
Saskatchewan and Manitoba into have-not provinces.

Kevin Avram sits on the Prairie Centre's Board of Trustees.

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posted February 11, 2002

Devaluing the assets of retiring farmers

By Craig Docksteader

When the issue of Saskatchewan's farmland ownership law comes up
in the legislature this spring, it will not just be Saskatchewan people
who are watching. The issue has attracted interest from all three prairie
provinces.

With the most restrictive farmland ownership legislation on the prairies,
any changes made to Saskatchewan's law will determine whether Manitoba
or Alberta residents are able to purchase Saskatchewan farmland without
moving here. Currently, Saskatchewan is the only prairie province that
prohibits other Canadians from buying farmland if they don't live
in the province. Alberta's law never did shut out Canadians and Manitoba
removed the restrictions on Canadian citizens a few years ago. While all
three provinces restrict foreign ownership, only Saskatchewan restricts
ownership by fellow Canadians.

On-going surveys by the Prairie Centre Policy Institute reveal that the
Saskatchewan farm community is split over the issue. Some prefer to see
the law stay as it is and others want to see it opened up. The arguments
are often emotional and infused with deeply-rooted fears about absentee
landlords, corporate farming, or large tracts of idle land.

But, by far, the primary concern at the farm gate is the law's impact
on the price of farm land. Although no independent studies have verified
that the existing restrictions keep land prices artificially low, farmers
generally agree that this is true. Everyone understands that the more
buyers you have at an auction, the higher the price will go. It follows
quite obviously that broadening the market for agricultural land means
more potential buyers and thus the likelihood of higher prices.

For those who are interested in buying more land, or want their children
to be able to buy land, the existing law is viewed as a good thing. It
helps keep prices down for young or expanding farmers. On the other hand,
those who are considering selling their land are opposed to the restrictions.
Their land is more difficult to sell and captures a lower price on the
market.

At first glance, the situation poses a quandary for Saskatchewan legislators.
By changing the law they appear to side with the older, established farmers,
and by retaining the existing restrictions they appear to come down on
the side of the next generation of farmers. Not wanting to alienate either
constituency, the issue develops a political inertia, pitting farmer against
farmer in a lose-lose proposition. The easiest thing for a politician
to do is tinker with the Act to give the appearance of action, while substantially
changing nothing.

But when the issue is examined more closely, it becomes apparent that
it's not as complicated as it first appears. Consider this simple
fact: If it's in the public interest to keep the price of farmland
low for new producers, then the cost of doing so should be publicly funded,
not imposed on retiring farmers.

It is fundamentally wrong to devalue the assets of farmers who have worked
all their lives to establish an equity position that provides for their
retirement and the inheritance of their children, in order to provide
a subsidy to an emerging generation of farmers. If the objective is to
subsidize the purchase of farm land, then do it openly and make everyone
pay for it. Don't send the bill to seniors and pretend this is good
public policy.

Craig Docksteader is Coordinator with the Prairie Centre Policy Institute.

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posted February 4, 2002

The benefits of big business

In parts of the prairie region, there is a deep-rooted fear of big business.
But while some businesses have earned their poor reputation, it is inaccurate
to paint all big business with the same brush. In fact, as Kevin Avram
explains, big business has brought many benefits to the prairie region.

The following commentary was initially published by the Prairie Centre
a couple of years ago. While it is not our practice to reprint commentaries,
this one is worth repeating. Following are some of Avram's comments.

- - - - - - - - - -

Individuals who go about bashing big business and moaning about an impending
doom that will supposedly be brought about by Canada's corporate
giants remind me of Shauna. She's a girl who went to school with
our daughter.

After turning 16 and starting to drive, Shauna discovered that she had
impaired vision. At night, she can't judge distance. In the daytime,
she gets around fine, but whenever she's caught out after dark she
has to pull her car over to the side of the road and walk, or find someone
else to drive. On smaller highways it's particularly frightening
because she thinks every oncoming vehicle is about to crash into her.

That's sort of how the anti-big business crowd sees the world. They
fail to appreciate or even understand the benefits of big business and
due to their impaired vision, lack the ability to accurately assess whether
it actually is a threat. So, like Shauna on that two-lane highway, they
falsely conclude that they're about to be in a head on collision
with an 18-wheel semi-trailer that has "Big Business" written
on the side.

Their fears are groundless. Big business has been a blessing to Canada.
In centuries gone by only the wealthiest and most elite of society could
afford to hire the craftsman necessary to make the kind of consumer goods
and gadgets that we all take for granted. Thanks to big business and mass
production, the average Canadian has a standard of living that's
better than history's most famous kings.

Ranchers and farmers have access to pickup trucks, tractors, combines,
animal medicines, weed control, a workshop full of low cost power tools
and hundreds of other desirable items because of big business. Corporate
giants like Microsoft and Intel provide the computer technology on which
tens of millions of people rely every day. Gas and oil pipelines that
transport fuel to heat homes and petroleum to run cars, trucks, and turbines
were built by big business.

Aircraft giant Boeing provides millions of people with safe and inexpensive
air travel and a retail leviathan like Wal-Mart brings an abundant supply
of high quality consumer goods to the masses at very low prices. What's
more is that companies like Wal-Mart employ thousands of people to do
it -- many of them unskilled.

Big business is one of the reasons food processing is safer than at any
time in the history of the world. It provides us with medical technology,
pharmaceuticals, telephone systems, mining equipment to dig ore from the
earth, factories that churn out furniture, electrical appliances, refrigerators,
tires, washing machines, and thousands of other items.

Big business brings wealth into being that never existed before and passes
it around to employees, shareholders, suppliers, and even the government.
The reason the Canadian government can have a multi-billion dollar budget
is because wealth has been and is being created in North America on an
unprecedented scale -- much of it by big business.

Corporate monopolies and a lack of competition should be shunned. But
that one caveat aside, the notion that big business is ruining our lives
or is something to be feared, is absurd.